A Western Michigan football player opened the 2025 season Friday night with a new team name on the front of his jersey, and a new display of his own name on the back.
Mustafi Al-Garawi, a redshirt senior defensive tackle, was set to become possibly the first NCAA student-athlete to display his surname in Arabic, when Western Michigan opened the season with a 23-6 loss against Michigan State at Spartan Stadium.
Ahead of this season, Al-Garawi transferred to Western Michigan from East Tennessee State, with whom he played in 17 games, but never had his surname in Arabic. Earlier this summer, he asked Western Michigan officials if he could do that for his final collegiate season, and head coach Lance Taylor and school officials OK’d the request, athletic director Dan Bartholomae said before the game. WMU hired a Kalamazoo seamstress to do the stitching on the jersey.
Western Michigan said Al-Garawi is the first student-athlete to wear his surname in Ararbic on his jersey. The NCAA could not confirm this fact, because it doesn’t keep such records. The NCAA said the decision on how to display surnames is left up to individual schools and conferences.
Al-Garawi plans to wear his surname in Arabic for the entire season.
There have been other two college football players who have had their name in another language on their jersey, both in Mandarin Chinese, for one game ― Notre Dame’s Charles Du for the 2024 national-championship game against Ohio State, and Arizona State’s Jackson He for a game against UCLA in 2020. Both Du and He were born in China.
According to Bartholomae, Al-Garawi was born in the United States, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, after his father, Rashid Al-Garawi, a native of Iraq, was granted United States citizenship after he rebelled against his own country under Saddam Hussein’s rule and assisted American forces in the buildup to the Second Gulf War in the early 2000s.
Al-Garawi grew up in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and was a first-team all-state selection in football and won two individual and state championships in wrestling.
At East Tennessee State, he made 18 total tackles, 10 of those (and two sacks) coming in 2023, when he played in a career-high 10 games. He earned two degrees at East Tennessee State before transferring to Western Michigan.
He was listed as a backup defensive tackle for the season-opening game at Michigan State, and he’s one of 33 college transfers on the Broncos’ roster to start the 2025 season.
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